"I Stared Down Death"
Her quick stop at the convenience store turned into a 20-hour hostage ordeal.
By Christopher W. Davis
From Reader's Digest
March 2006
"Everybody's Got Their Time"
Tammi Smith got up early and dressed in jeans and a white shirt. She had an appointment in traffic court in Shelbyville, Indiana, over a minor violation. Waking her husband, Shawn, with a kiss, she told him she was taking the van. The kids were already up, eating cereal and watching cartoons. After court, she thought she might stop to get her nails done and then pick up sodas at the Bigfoot convenience store on the way home.
Eighty miles down the interstate in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dennis McAninch and his friend Joseph G. Scalf also had appointments in court. On burglary charges. McAninch, a 34-year-old ex-con with multiple felony arrests and convictions, was currently out on parole after serving five years for burglary. But instead of showing for their court dates, the pair drove across the state line into Indiana in McAninch's 1999 white Ford compact.
In Batesville, an off-duty policeman noticed the car slowly cruising a neighborhood. There'd recently been a string of burglaries there -- and this guy drove like someone casing houses. The officer called in a description of the vehicle, and in minutes a police car was on the scene, lights flashing.
McAninch pulled over and lifted his shirt, showing Scalf the 9 mm semi-automatic in his belt. He kept the engine running. Then, as the officer approached, he gunned it and took off.
Tammi's traffic case was quickly resolved without a fine. Leaving the courthouse, she checked her watch. She still had time to get her nails done.
Mcaninch reached speeds of up to 120 mph on Interstate 74, swerving around stop sticks on the highway and throwing screwdrivers, bottles, anything he could put his hands on, out the window at police.
After leaving the manicurist, Tammi drove east on Route 44 to Bigfoot. She pulled up to the front door of the convenience store. Intending to dash in and pick up some sodas, she left her keys and cell phone on the seat.
In his frantic attempt to escape, McAninch finally crashed into another vehicle, damaging his Ford, which barely made it off the highway into the Bigfoot lot. He leaped out of the car and dashed for the store as police cars pulled in, in close pursuit. Scalf held his hands out of the passenger window and surrendered. McAninch kept running, firing twice at police.
Tammi was at the register, holding a copy of The Shelbyville News, when a stocky man in a long-sleeved white shirt and jeans burst through the front door with a gun in his hand. "Everybody get out or I'm going to kill you!"
Two female employees rushed for the back door. McAninch leaped over the counter, cornering the clerk, a young man, at the register. Not knowing what to do, Tammi ducked behind a food rack at the back of the store.
But McAninch saw her. "You, get up here!" he shouted.
Okay, Tammi told herself, this is God's plan for me today. I might die. Don't be afraid of dying. Everybody's got their time. This might be mine.
Alone With the Gunman
As police cars gathered in the parking lot, McAninch ordered the clerk to lock the front door. The young man eased around the counter, locked the door and pocketed the key. Then, seeing McAninch was focused on the police out front, he bolted for the back door.
Tammi was now alone with the gunman.
McAninch grabbed her by the hair, forced her up to the window and put his gun to her head -- showing police he had a hostage.
"Please don't shoot me," Tammi said. She started to cry. "I have kids."
McAninch turned the gun away and instead fired a shot through the window at police. Then he dragged Tammi to the back of the store and into a windowless office, a cramped space with a desk, two chairs, a phone and two computer monitors, one that showed views from security cameras inside the store.
McAninch told Tammi to take a seat and then sat next to her. The wait began. Tammi knew her only chance was to stay calm, show no emotion and try to keep talking to this guy.
The office phone began to ring. One of the calls was from a reporter at Indianapolis radio station WIBC, who had heard about the police chase and called for an eyewitness account. McAninch told her he was holding a hostage, and then asked the reporter to call a woman friend. The reporter linked them on a conference call and later broadcast portions of their conversation.
"What's up, baby?" asked McAninch.
"Nothing," the woman responded. "What's wrong?"
"I'm in a gas station. There's about 50 police outside. I shot at them so ... they're probably going to end up killing me."
She tried to talk sense to him. "Can't you go out with your hands up?" she asked. "Figure another way out of this."
Nothing changed his mind. In the midst of the conversation, McAninch even put Tammi on the phone.
As time dragged on, Tammi asked him if she could go to the bathroom, but McAninch said, "Baby, I just can't let you go up there. They're liable to shoot through the windows." Eventually he allowed her to relieve herself in a trash can.
At long last, police took command of the phone line. They now controlled McAninch's access to the outside world through a police negotiator.
When he first called, the negotiator asked McAninch who he was holding hostage. Was she all right? Did he or Tammi need medical attention? Then the negotiator settled into a long conversation calculated to keep McAninch calm.
Tammi was working on the same idea. When McAninch was off the phone, she took family photos out of her wallet. "Here's my daughter," she told him. "She's a cheerleader. She's ten. Isn't she beautiful?"
McAninch studied the photo. "Yeah, she's a beautiful girl."
"Do you have any kids?" Tammi asked.
Yes, he said, one, a 13-year-old daughter, but he had no pictures.
Tammi was trying to get to know him. Win his trust. It was already obvious to her that he wasn't expecting to get out alive. She had to find a way to convince him not to take her with him.
"All I Want Is to Go Home"
In between phone calls, McAninch checked the layout of the store. The back entrance was a thick cold-storage door with a large metal handle. McAninch braced a stepladder against the handle and built a barricade of food boxes.
All the while, Tammi kept McAninch talking, looking for anything to engage him. He had tattoos running up the right side of his neck -- his birth sign, Virgo. And on his right arm were two women's names; one was his daughter's. On his left arm, there was a poem for his parents. Tammi could only make out the last line: "Let there be no more tears." She stored it all away.
"Your daughter needs you," she said. "You know that."
"Yeah, I know," McAninch said.
"You need to give up," she said, keeping her tone even, trying not to sound bossy or pushy, more like a friend giving advice. She repeated what the police had earlier told him. "Give me the gun. Put it in a plastic bag. I'll carry it out." She kept talking. "Do your time, and you'll get out."
"I can't do that," he said.
There was money everywhere. Tammi had never seen a room so disorganized. There was cash piled on the desk in the office. Checks written out to Bigfoot all over the place. Bunches of cash behind the chairs. McAninch stuffed over $1,000 into his pockets. And handed Tammi $350 out of the stack of cash on the table.
"I can't take that," she told him. "God's watching. I'm not a thief."
"Take it," he insisted. "Put it in your wallet -- now!"
She tried to shake him off. "All I want is to go home and make dinner for my family."
"I can't let you go. You're my security blanket," McAninch told her. "You're what's keeping me alive."
Emergency response teams (SWAT units) from state, county and city jurisdictions were now on the scene. Police put gunmen in place. A mobile command center had been set up some 500 yards from the store near the interstate overpass. The press corps had arrived en masse.
Alerted by the radio broadcast, Tammi's husband, Shawn, his parents and her mother and stepfather had rushed to the scene. A state police chaplain was assigned to stay with the family. Police told them Tammi was not hurt -- and, in a convenience store, not hungry. They said they would do anything to keep her safe. One officer told the press, "We are prepared to talk until the last Ho Ho is gone."
Fifteen hours crept by. McAninch sat thinking, tapping the gun against his head and making multiple demands of the police negotiator. He wanted to visit his mother's grave before being locked up, he wanted his pal Joe Scalf set free, he wanted to talk to his daughter, he wanted a live television crew filming his surrender so there wouldn't be any monkey business, and he wanted cold beer. "Of all places to hold up," he said, "I chose one that doesn't sell beer."
Through it all, Tammi was close enough to him to grab his gun, but even if she could wrestle it from him, she knew she'd never be able to use it. She tried to maintain an appearance of calm.
"You're a pretty cool hostage," he said, and told the police: "This bitch ain't scared at all."
Slowly McAninch began to talk to her. He confessed he was bipolar. That he used Valium. He had marijuana with him and started to smoke a joint, offering her a puff. She said no.
"At least I'm locked up in here with a beautiful girl and not some guy," he said.
Around midnight, Tammi told McAninch she was feeling sick. He let her go to the sink to throw up. Then he became concerned. "Are you all right? Can I get you some milk to settle your stomach?"
"Yes," Tammi said.
He went into the store and brought her some. Then he started to pace. A few minutes later, he went to the sink and began to vomit himself. When he returned, Tammi saw panic in his eyes.
"Are you scared?" she asked.
He didn't answer. But overhead they heard helicopters. Tammi pleaded again with McAninch to let her go. She was tired. She was sick.
"You're becoming a not-so-cool hostage," he told her.
Too Burned Out for Tears
At around 2 a.m., McAninch gathered flattened cardboard boxes and put them on the floor. Then he found some Bigfoot employee uniform shirts in the back room and laid them on the cardboard to make a bed. As he stretched out, blocking the front doorway, gun in hand, he asked Tammi, "You want to do something?"
"What!" Tammi said, surprised and angry. McAninch lay there looking at her as the minutes ticked by, then said, "OK, I'm not even going to go there."
Tammi watched as he closed his eyes. All right, she thought. What if he goes to sleep? Should I run for it? In the end she decided not to. The doors were locked, and he still held the gun. And as far as she could tell, he never did drift off to sleep.
The negotiator called again, offering a cell phone to McAninch because the land line had become staticky. Send Tammi out for it; they'd leave it outside.
"I'm not sending her out there till you guys back off," McAninch said.
Taking a chance, Tammi walked to the front door, took the handle and pulled. "The door's locked," she yelled to the police.
"Get back here," McAninch ordered.
"Let me go get that phone. I'll come back," she pleaded.
After more negotiation with her and the police, McAninch finally agreed. But he wanted to make sure his "protection" would come back.
He began rummaging around in the store, searching. Suddenly he picked up a vacuum cleaner, grabbed a screwdriver and took it apart. He ripped the electrical cord free, and came for Tammi. He tied the cord around her waist. Holding her on a tether, he let Tammi out the front door. In the interim, working in the shadows, the police had unlocked it. Tammi moved forward, looked, but couldn't find the phone. Enraged, McAninch yanked her in.
Back on the static-filled land line, the police explained that a new cell phone had been attached to a pole just outside the door. But McAninch was in no mood to listen.
As dawn broke, police demolition experts rigged the heavy back door with explosive charges. A SWAT team was ready to blow it open and rush the store.
At the same time, around 6:30 a.m., McAninch changed his mind and decided to send Tammi out once more to get the phone. He played her out on the cord. She opened the door, stepped forward, saw the phone on the ground and reached for it.
Policemen hidden in the shadows grabbed her by the arm and tried to pull her free. For a moment Tammi was trapped in a tug of war. But McAninch reeled her back in.
"Get back!" he yelled at the police. "Get back!" He fired a shot.
Police returned fire. One SWAT unit blew open the back door. Another unit rushed the front.
"Stop shooting! Stop shooting!" Tammi yelled. "I'm right here! I'm right here!" She fell to the floor and grabbed a plastic soda tray to shield her head.
Suddenly it was silent. The shooting stopped. She looked at McAninch, who was lying motionless across her leg -- bullet wounds in his arm, leg and chest.
Tammi didn't scream or cry. She didn't know whether to run or not. She thought McAninch might still be able to shoot her. But he was dying. His mouth was open and there was a gaping hole under his chin pulsing out blood. He'd shot himself -- he would never go back to prison.
The police moved to scoop her up, but she was still tethered to the bloody body. An officer cut the cord, and finally she was free.
Outside it was raining. Her shoe had come off. Held between two policemen, Tammi hopped on one foot across the wet parking lot. They took her to the command trailer to recover and talk with negotiators. Amazingly, her only injury was to her morning manicure -- a broken nail.
Her husband, Shawn, ran to the trailer to meet her. They hugged, unable to speak, and Shawn began to cry. But Tammi was too burned out for tears. She didn't cry that day or night or the next day. It wasn't until around midnight of the second day that she began to weep uncontrollably.
From the time she was a child, Tammi Smith had nightmares that someone was lurking in the dark waiting to kill her with a knife or a gun. After Bigfoot, she doesn't have that dream anymore.
Photo by Kevin Horan After her hostage ordeal, Smith claims old nightmares no longer plague her.
发贴者：jason @ 3/05/2006 09:21:00 下午
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